PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

This was in reference to a Photo of my Dad a Dentist holding a rifle rather haphazard in front of the Sick Call hut at a MASH in Korea 

To which someone said:

This was a good picture. Your dad was a dentist and had to fire his rifle?? What was he shooting at? Donna

My Dad said he had to fire it once into a bush so he always referred to himself and his buddies in the pic as The Squirrel Hunters.

Re:Photos 

Well it was Korea and they were near the front line occasionally. Who knows I don't think he knew or wanted to know who. I have all the letters he wrote my mom and a good stories (sic) of whiskey bottles being transported from Japan as "medical supplies". And my mom dressing as a nurse and appropriating an ambulance to drive with another lady to the docks to deliver the "medical supplies" to the ship. Or the time my dad hung over from (Medical) supplies and was ordered to the parade grounds in Korea. He thought he was in big trouble 'cause they had celebrated that night... But they wanted to award him the Bronze Star. The pictures we have of him on the parade field is disbelief that the Army wanted to give him a medal. He was just doing his job. The fact the train he was helping to evacuate was being fired upon didn't enter him.(sic) He was just doing his job..."Besides," he'd always say, "I'm a lover not a fighter." The army was a hard place for a humanitarian. He'd patched em up and send them back in. Most times they didn't even have the tents set up. He'd be doing dentistry on the hood of a Jeep the windshield as the back of the dental chair.

Debbie Thompson Johnson '73

Raleigh NC